Every day, another right wing GOP theory is tested and fails miserably.
Because in the real world, fantasy-based theories simply cannot work.
In Colorado, once again, the idea that guns should be easy to obtain and that everyone should be carrying them has been dispelled in a hail of easy to obtain bullets and destroyed lives. Why, it's right out of "The Oklahoma Kid."
In congress, GOP representatives and senators traffic in ideas culled from Ma and Pa Kettle movies and folktales describing days when men hunted and women stayed in their hand-hewn cabins clutching their aprons and baking pies. Why, it's right out of "Shane."
In the corporate-owned media, men dressed like Ronald Reagan and women dressed like Rita Hayworth disseminate grotesque exaggerations and gossip in authoritative tones.
And our kids ingest a steady diet of "games" teeming with violent imagery that propagates the fantasy that war is a noble and glorious endeavor.
It's a culture losing touch with reality. Like the distracted and deluged minds it seeks to profit from, the business model utilized by the corporate GOP to great effect is one that is drenched in unreality as well: the fantasy-within-a-fantasy that is Pottersville from "It's a Wonderful Life." It is simple and effective: the world is garish and tawdry, violence is everywhere, low pursuits consume the depressed denizens of this once proud, now corrupt town. The people who work to keep food on their tables and roofs over their heads are rabble, sometimes they're "garlic eaters." And as such they are beneath the oligarchs who know better, who live better, who are better.
There is so much fantasy taking the place of reality in this country that you cannot see a company logo that doesn't in some way have an otherworldly motif, imagery redolent of "Star Wars" with comet trails, laser beams and whirling planets; imagery that fetishizes money with gleaming gold and glittering silver; sunbeams streaming through mountainous meringue clouds denoting heaven and an afterlife. You'd think the last thing people want to do would be to live down here on earth.
But can you blame them? Down here there is the reality that people get sick and need help; people get old and need care; soldiers return from battle and need attention and rehabilitation; children need education.
Down here, men and women in positions of power are seeking to create a fantasyland where such things are masked and only spoken of in harsh, cartoonish terms. It's because they haven't the courage to confront their fantastical terrors with actual real-world wisdom.
It's like watching a movie.
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By 2017 we will have in place the infrastructure for 450ppm C02 in the atmosphere. And that level means out of control climatic outcomes. At the rate we are going we would actually see those levels around 2032..
2 amendment brought to you by Thomas Jefferson needs modernisation to the 21st century.
Ugh! I forgot that part 2 would appear above part 1. :-(
I have a friend who has a concealed carry permit (to defend against the nuts with guns) and he said, expectedly, "If someone in that audience was packing, the guy could have been put down before killing so many." A few minutes later he said, "But you'd wanna shoot at center mass [in the chest], and he was wearing a bulletproof vest -- he would have seen the flare of the shot and shot the shooter. There would be no opportunity for a second [head] shot."
The point? You can't defend against the crazies. They'll always get more and bigger guns. What we need to do is make some first steps of reasonable change. Yes, maintain the right to bear arms (for hunting, target shooting, or protection against nuts with guns, etc.), but REINSTATE THE BAN AGAINST ASSAULT WEAPONS. Make certain weapons ILLEGAL -- LIKE TEAR GAS CANNISTERS. LIMIT THE SIZE OF BULLET CLIPS TO 7 ROUNDS OR LESS. Can't we all agree on these basic steps?
The second thing . . .
Who pays for the injured's hospital expenses if they have no health insurance? You think the guy with the money for an arsenal of 6000 rounds will foot the bills? Or are some people going to lose their homes because of medical expenses?
What has happened to our country that every American has the right to unlimited GUNS & AMMO but every American doesn't have the right to Universal Healthcare?
About the Vest, if you shoot someone wearing a bulletproof vest with a 9mm, .40s&w, .45acp you are going to break or bruise ribs. Also, if you CCW you know not to shoot once but until the threat is neutralized like the 71 year old man in the Florida Internet cafe. If he was shot 5-17 times with a 9mm in the chest, he would be dead from shock or in to much pain to continue.
Your CCW friend needs practice more as I can put 6 rounds center mass in quick order with my pistol and that would have put him down long enough for me to relocate. The common thing with these shootings is they taking place where law abiding people are disarmed and easy pray for killers.
I'd like to see a savvy video someone choose a scene from "It's a Wonderful Life" to manipulate so that the decent Jimmy Stewart character gets shot - along with a few family members or other good guys.
Then splice in some of the recent yahoos whining as to what a shame it is that other fine citizens of Pottersville weren't packing so one of them could shoot the shooter.
Then rewind and redo the shooting of Jimmy and other innocents - but adding visages of Jimmy's sweet neighbors firing away, guns a-blazing.
In other words, SHOW this beloved, benign town - as it would look - if the NRA-lovers had created it. Could be powerful.
Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency's chief economist states: "When I look at this data (estimates of worldwide increases in Co2 emissions each year), the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about 6 degrees (almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit).
A temperature, as the author of the Rolling Stone article I'm referencing, "The Reckoning," Bill McKibben, notes, "...would create a planet straight out of science fiction."
I love sci-fi films! Pass me the popcorn...and the sunscreen, SPF rating 1000.
And for you righties saying, "Oh yeah, liberal rag Rolling Stone!" National Geographic Magazine recently had an article reporting a similar scenario for our planet's future. No "liberal rag" they.
But can we prevent it?
Germany is the one of the only countries seriously trying. They are now nearly 50% solar powered within their borders.
The sad thing any surviving future historians writing from within their underground shelters will sadly point out, is that the technology to prevent climate catastrophe was already available.
2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit):
The global temperature increase agreed to at the mostly failed Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, that Earth's climate should remain below. We are currently at a 0.8 Celsius increase, and things are starting to get a little scary. What will 2 degrees Celsius look like?
565 Gigatons:
The amount of Co2 scientists agree we can poor into the atmosphere by mid-century, and still stay below 2 degrees Celsius. But models now show that if we stopped pouring Co2 into the sky immediately, the temp would still rise from previous outpourings to 1.6 degrees Celsius. We're already 3/4 of the way to 2 degrees.
2,795 Gigatons:
The number proven to be in known coal, oil and gas reserves, waiting to be burned. 5 times the amount scientist agree we might survive releasing. This means we have to keep 80% of those resources locked away.
But here's the rub: Fossil fuel industries (and nations) use those resource figures like equity to borrow, base share prices on and to plan their future budgets from the expected return.
27 TRILLION dollars is the estimated worth! When you ask them to cut by 80% to keep the temp below 2 degrees, you're asking them to erase 20 TRILLION dollars from their portfolios.
So burn we will. And what will the outcome ultimately be?
Word limit means you'll have to read part 2 below to find out...
Since reading Dune as a teenager I've done my best to confront most of my fears, even dying. Frank Herbert had Paul Atreides repeat a Bene Gesserit litany against fear that went:
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Some near misses in younger Xtreme years taught me to always be ready to accept that 'look back' at my life, if not how to avoid still making stupid human mistakes. But they also taught me to breathe deep of this existence and find something about it to enjoy without fear - whenever possible.
Fantasyland creators need to keep folks afraid but also provide them with plenty of new fears frequently, lest the grip on their golden goose believers fail. Those embracing fear without question make their job so very easy.
So these emails are full of advice about "how to survive" when the riots happen and their wealthy gated communities are invaded and sacked by the rest of us. For some reason, she thinks that I ~~~ a retired elementary teacher who had to work for 33 years to finally hit the $50,000 mark, is in the same boat that she is in and will sympathize with her plight and understand her fear.
The fear-mongering in the Tea Party emails is palpable, divisive, and mighty scary. And yes, it is all fantasy as far as I can see.
IT IS ANOTHER CRIME GOP AND TEA BAGGERS COMMIT BY TAKING SIDE WITH NRA. At the time constitution allowed to bear arm it was single shot. A meditated murder equipment himself with a number of assault rifles with 6000 bullets. How in the world to justify this is what the constotution permitted. WHAT KIND OF STUPIDITY TO READ THE CONSTITUTION. SUE ITS PANTS DOWN FOR SUCH IGNORANCES.
I guess this amount of fantasy is also falling on the gap left of many years of the old belief that America is "the promise land". I compare it to a child who was spoiled and grows up to find out that life in general is not that easy. And instead of getting up and facing it, this "new adult" decides to keep on living in that fake reality.
And then you could ask me: what does a brazilian woman know about that? We live the same thing here. Samba and football have been closing the eyes of brazilians for too long. Panis et circenses. And no education, with no education, no critical sense, and we have the growing snowball effect all over again. It happens ALL OVER THE WORLD, if you want, you will see it.
But that's just me thinking loud. I might be wrong.
Isn't it sad when a good story fails miserably?
What you and the other anti - gun people are mixing up is the concept of a semi-auto rifle that cosmetically resemble their military counterparts. AR-15's, are a pleasant gun for men and especially women to use, and they are accurate. My family has used the AR-15 type for hunting antelope and deer for decades. The US Olympic shooting team uses the AR-15 as do other organized gun teams all over the US. They are inanimate objects are most assuredly not evil.
Don't allow yourself to get confused with the nomenclature. I recommend you visit you closest certified gun range and fire a few target rounds with either platform (AR or AK).
I challenge you to take that action. My guess is you will actually have some fun, and learn not to fear what you don't now understand.
Petres